Soham Murders Case Study

The Soham murders refer to the death of of Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells, two ten year old schoolgirls who disappeared on the 4th of August 2002 around 6:30 pm in Soham, Cambridgeshire. Ian Huntley, the local school caretaker was found guilty of these murders. Throughout this case review, the case will first be shortly reviewed, then the main issues will be pointed out, an awareness of the procedures and forensic guidance will then be demonstrated, then we will comment and rationale and to finish we will conclude.

On Saturday, August the 17th, the bodies of the Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman were found brutally murdered in a ditch. On the same day, Ian Huntley was charged for the murders of Holly West and Jessica Chapman, and Maxine Carr,

Though this case showed many issues on the investigation side mainly due to Patricia Wiltshire. Firstly Patricia Wiltshire found two paths that could have been used by Ian Huntley to enter the ditch where he dropped Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman. Patricia Wiltshire says she did not take note of route B because she was concentrating on route A as soon as she found it, she claims route B was not “important” because it seemed “obvious that route A had been used”. The second path was not measured and was just followed by eye and no evidence for a continuation of B was searched for. Patricia Wiltshire said not remembering the name police officer she told about the second path to the ditch, she told Mr Peter Murphy but did not take note of the others. Patricia Wiltshire knew how important it is to take notes of everything on a crime scene, but she did not. Patricia Wilshire also made a mistake by not looking for footmarks in between the bodies and the line of B, she declared that she would have not been able to find any because the soil was thick twig litter. Even if she said that route A was the one used to enter the ditch, she did not make a verification of this fact and